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RESTAURANT MENU DESIGN:
The secrets to what makes a menu work (and what doesn’t)
YOUR MENU MAKES PEOPLE THINK
It’s the beating heart of your restaurant, everyone looks at it and all choices stem from here. Get it right and your guests will effortlessly find dishes they love, get it wrong and it could be eating away at your profits.
Is your menu carrying dead weight?
Not all dishes are made equal.
Some fly out of the kitchen, others rarely get past the fridge doors. Some make you money and others eat the bottom line. The key is identifying these dishes and making sure they all have a purpose on your menu. That’s where the Menu Engineering Matrix comes in, it’s a simple framework that helps with professional restaurant menu design which dishes deserve the spotlight and which ones are holding you back.
Let’s break it down
Stars: Your hero’s, popular and profitable. Keep these in the spotlight
Plough horses: The crowd pleasers, Popular, but not as profitable. Keep these but find ways to tweak the price, recipe or portion size
Puzzles: Hidden gems, highly profitable but not as popular. Either rename or reposition these item, sometimes the description is the problem, not the dish.
Dogs: Unprofitable and not popular. Be ruthless, cut them out
With this information, every dish has a purpose.
Less is more when it comes to good menu design
A stuffed menu isn’t choice, it’s confusion. Too many options overwhelm guests, who choose the safe dish they know. Use the product Matrix to trim it down to 5-7 item per section, a key step in professional restaurant menu design. A lean menu makes decisions easy for guests and keeps service smooth. A good example is a seasonal Xmas menu, where a tight selection makes every item feel special and lets the kitchen handle a lot of covers.
WHAT CATCHES THEIR EYE FIRST? MENU LAYOUT THAT WORKS
Guests don’t read menus like a book, they scan. Without a clear layout, your stars get lost and puzzles stay hidden.
Research shows that diners follow a Z pattern across your menu: Top left, across to the right, down diagonally, then bottom right. By placing best selling or high margin dishes along this path, they are discovered naturally. We can also draw eyes to specific dishes with subtle visual cues like a box or icon.
By guiding your customers eyes, your hero dishes stand where their eyes fall, puzzles get noticed and your duds fade into the background.
Culinary language, is your menu full of it?
Words like jus or emulsion might sound impressive, but most quests don’t want a general knowledge quiz when they order. The best menu fires up the imagination, so diners can taste the food before it hits the table. Swap of ‘chicken in an onion reduction’ try ‘chicken with sweet caramelised onions’ same dish, but one gets skipped while the other is mouth watering. Getting this right for puzzle dishes can quickly turn them into new stars.
Maybe I’d order? If the price was right
Eating out doesn’t have to be a bargain hunt, but your menu might be making it one. £ signs on your menu can subconsciously have guests adding up the bill in their heads. Start by ditching the symbol and placing the number subtly next to the description. Have them read your mouth watering dish first and think about the price later. These simple tweaks help prevent menu shopping and keep the experience focused on taste, not numbers.
Make every dish count.
Your menu is more than just dishes, it’s one of the most powerful sales tools in your restaurant. Every dish should have a purpose, every item deserves to be enjoyed. And every layout decision should be considered to make ordering as effortless as possible.
ONCE IT'S DESIGNED, WHAT ABOUT THE PRINTING?
The choice of paper, finish and format can also have a big impact on a menus success.
For most menus, creating the right impression is important. It’s often the first thing a customer touches. The choice of paper and finish plays an important factor in this experience. It needs to feel the part, but also, not fall to pieces after a few uses. Opting for a laminated surface finish such as those available in our laminated flyers and laminated showcards is often the best solution to maintaining there menus appearance even after 50 pairs of hands have held it. A laminate protects the surface from finger marks and spills as well as being wipeable – an important feature for any restaurant, café or pub. A laminated menu is a class act and should not be confused with ‘Encapsulation’ which to be honest looks rather cheap.